the pale blue dot

Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.

In a commencement address delivered May 11, 1996, Sagan related his thoughts on the deeper meaning of the photograph:[15][5]

Here's to the coolest man in the whole wide cosmos!

When you're baffled about things you don't even know, then you're in trouble. And sadly, it's right about the same time you miss the people you know who'd put you in your place, give you perspective, and ultimately, tell you that things are gonna be just fine. And you listen to Pat Metheny's Last Train Home and you realize that yeah, things are actually just fine.

I thought I'd share this piece I wrote 17 years ago, just a few months after my dad passed. Like something done on a teletype form of paper, maybe something shorter, I remember writing this, almost without stopping. Jack Kerouac once said, "the first thought is always the best thought." Perhaps that's why I never bothered revising/editing way before I started reading On the Road, and long after this letter (sort of) was written. So fuck it with the spelling and the grammar. Here goes...

When I think of dad, I think of having a fun, and most often funny life and just simply loving it. I become this little girl not wanting to grow up.

I can remember doing a lot of silly stuff with him. He was funny. Hilarious. He made his friends and family laugh. His laughter would make us laugh. Laughter even the neighbors 6 blocks away could hear.

He made us watch movies from Disney classics to horror flicks. Cartoons that never failed to amuse us, my sister and I would end up mimicking the villlains from Capt. Hook to Cinderella’s stepmom. I’ve seen all Friday the 13ths, Amytiville, Exorcist and Rosemary’s Baby before I even graduated grade school. When I was about 9 or 10, I’d watch Gone with the Wind, Casablanca, Singing in the Rain, An American in Paris, Roman Holiday and all his other favorites, which eventually became mine too until 3, 4 in the morning. My head lying so comfortably on his pits, without any clue what the movie was all about.

He introduced us to atari and collecovision when pacman and megamania ruled!

There were times back in our old Philam home, I’d watch him from afar, smoking while staring at his bonsai plants in the outdoor pond, listening to stuff like Van Morrison, Steely Dan and Bob Dylan. I learned to appreciate stuff like Miles Davis, Pat Metheny, Jimi Hendrix, John Coltrane and BB King because of him—only the dads of my generation could appreciate. And at the same time, he’d be able to listen with an equal amount of enthusiasm to Sex Pistols, Minor Threat, Metallica and Dead Kennedys.

He took me to a club, gave me my first bottle of beer and my first stick of cigarette when I was 12. He taught me everything I needed to know about PC’s during the days of Wordstar and Lotus 123. His Wolfenstein game was such a huge, involving family affair. And his default Cosmos book was an obvious sign of his long-standing affair with Sagan. His passion for Science (Astronomy) was overwhelming. Watching some supernova sometime in the 80's was surreal.

Dad gave me my first ever favorite record from the Big Country when I was 13. He’d tag us, his kids in events where punks and mohawks ruled, wearing his neatly ponytailed long hair and fatigue trenchcoat.

While he may have allowed us to grow, permitted us to feel the childhood we so deserved, gave his consent for us to have fun living our lives, there was certainly a profound degree of respect for him. A deep, serious 5-second stare, without uttering a single word, could make our tears roll down our eyes.

He made me feel what Christmas season is all about. And now that I’m an adult, Christmas, being my favorite time of the year, never fails to make me feel like a child again. And I love every moment of it.

He taught me how to live life the way it should be lived. Not how people say it should.

Dad gave me so much wisdom, the smartest man I’ve ever known. When I had my first boyfriend, not that he didn’t like him or anything…I mean, they’d spend more time on the computer than my boyfriend then and I would. But I recall him saying in passing, as if avoiding to be sappy, “it would really be nice, Marish, to go through a couple of relationships and know different kinds of people before settling into a lifelong commitment…”.

Right after college, I was in a state of dementia trying to figure out exactly what I wanted to do in my life (not that I’ve figured it out now…). But when I say to myself, “choose a job you love and you’ll never have to work a day in your life…”, that’s definitely my dad talking.

He delivered totally absurd and odd statements and jokes onlyhe could possibly pull off. Our family setup is odd as it is…but he made it feel like it was the most normal, the most fun and coolest family there is. And for that, I am so proud of who we all are and what we’ve all become as a family.

I can’t imagine being someone else’s daughter. He was everyone’s cool dad.

While most people spend their lives looking for people to tell them what to do, where to work, how to live, I’d say my dad was brave enough to try new things even at the risk of failure. He’s had several and I know that. But he had enormous enthusiasm for anything he decided to get himself into. Living life with so much passion.

You see, the parting is only tragic only because it was sudden. Only because it was unexpected. In the greater scheme of life, this may or may not be a horrible event. But it would be horrible and even unthinkeable if he had passed, not having done the things he loved and enjoyed. But he embraced life. Lived his life the way he wanted to.

The way I see and live life now, maybe right or wrong, is how he would’ve wanted me to see and live it. And in my heart, and in my soul, I would never see and live life in any other way.

And just for that, I will always and forever be his little girl…

ODE TO DAD PLAYLIST:

1. Last Train Home - Pat Metheny

2. Deacon Blues - Steely Dan

3. Born to Run - Bruce Springsteen

4. Once in a Lifetime - Talking Heads

5. In My Eyes - Minor Threat

6. Walk on the Wild Side - Velvet Underground

7. Blowin in the Wind - Bob Dylan

8. Where the Rose is Sown - Big Country

9. Ain't Too Proud to Beg - Temptations

10. Bitches Brew - Miles Davis

i'm laughing at clouds

Singing in the Rain. Wizard of Oz. It's a Wonderful Life. Peter Pan. These are just some of the movies I used to watch over and over and over again when I was a kid. And then I grew old. I finished school and got a job. Reality bit me. Hard. An ongoing battle has been brewing inside me for a while now. Thing is, there's already too much going on in my personal life pie that I sometimes think twice about attending to these other things outside the pie. But then, is it just because I expect too much from people that I demand exactly the same or even more? Or perhaps, while I struggle to disregard and just get on with my own thing, such loathing vibe gets worse every time it makes it all harder to ignore. And the Shantaram speaks, fate always gives you two choices, the one you should take, and the one you do. Ok, that should shut me up.

I am disenchanted. I'm perpetually baffled by the pettiness, ambiguity and general nastiness that abounds. Not that I don't have my share of these nastiness. Nastiness would be an understatement as far as my life goes. But loyalty and honesty to the people I'm loyal and honest to are terribly important to me, and these things are so elusive these days. It's exhausting to question. And I remember writing earlier, a lot of other things are reserved for all the other ages to uncover. Otherwise, there would be no purpose to wonder, nothing left for every age to marvel at.

The short, small trips allow you to think of bigger, long term things. And it dawned on me that if I can just simply stick to my inner vision without demanding that the rest of the world conform to my ideals, then it may one day dawn on me that such involvement and conviction is not wasted just because I sometimes have to compromise with reality. The tendency to cling to an ideal and become bewildered when it's punctured is most visible in my job and my relationships. And throw in the way I live my life everyday. Then the song in your head plays, you can't always get what you want...you can't always get what you want...you can't always get what you want...but if you try sometimes, you just might find, you just might find, you get what you need.

Remember the mad ones, those who are mad to live, mad to talk, wanting everything at the same time. the ones who never yawn and burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars. Now I refuse to believe that those are the same ones who want too many things, who get all confused runnning from one falling star to another until they drop. Those who have nothing to offer except their own confusion.

I recently made this Ode to Dad playlist on my iPod. I miss the old man. Especially when I feel like I'm in a rut and feel like I'm losing myself. When I feel like a complete unknown, no direction home, like a rolling stone. I can almost hear him say, "deal with it, marish. deal with it". The thought of him snaps me out of my annoyingly shallow drama-queen mode. I become this little girl not wanting to grow up. But I'm no longer that. I feel restless, itching to get up and go. Because perhaps tramps like us were born to run. And then you slow down and listen to the cymbals on Metheny's Last Train Home. The same exact song I was listening to over and over while I was at the beach, feeling the sand on my feet, the breeze on my face, smoking my cigarette. And then Steely Dan's Deacon Blues immediately follows. And that moment, like this moment as I write, makes you realize that things aren't as bad as they seem. Now I just wanna drink scotch whisky all night long and skip dying behind the wheel.

Life may not always end up where you had planned, and things might not work out exactly as you'd have liked them to. So I'll try not to fuck it. And for once in my lifetime, I might, just might stop it with the griping, stop wondering what it all means and just start singing this song in the rain.

And you may find yourself living in a shotgun shack
And you may find yourself in another part of the world
And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile
And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife
And you may ask yourself-well...how did I get here?

Letting the days go by, let the water hold me down
Letting the days go by, water flowing underground
Into the blue again, after the moneys gone
Once in a lifetime, water flowing underground.

And you may ask yourself, how do I work this?
And you may ask yourself, where is that large automobile?
And you may tell yourself, this is not my beautiful house!
And you may tell yourself, this is not my beautiful wife!

Water dissolving...and water removing
There is water at the bottom of the ocean
Carry the water at the bottom of the ocean
Remove the water at the bottom of the ocean!

And you may ask yourself, what is that beautiful house?
And you may ask yourself, where does that highway go?
And you may ask yourself, am I right? ...am I wrong?
And you may tell yourself, my god!...what have I done?

Same as it ever was...same as it ever was...same as it ever was...

i don't wanna grow up

Think of a wonderful thought
any merry little thought
Think of Christmas, think of snow
think of sleigh bells- off you go!
like reindeer in the sky
you can fly! you can fly! you can fly!

Think of the happiest things
it's the same as having wings
take the path that moonbeams make
if the moon is still awake
you'll see him with his eye
you can fly! you can fly! you can fly!

Up you go with a heigh and Go to the
stars beyond the blue
there's a Never Land waiting for you
where all your happy
dreams come true
every dream that you dream
will come true

When there's a smile in your heart
there's no better time to start
think of all the joy you'll find
when you leave the world behind
and bid your cares good-bye
you can fly! you can fly! you can fly!

you can fly! you can fly! you can fly!
you can fly! you can fly! you can fly!
you can fly! you can fly! you can fly!
you can fly! you can fly! you can fly!